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Airline industry works on making life at 35,000 feet seem like home

By Brian Sumers, Los Angeles News Group

Posted:
09/15/2013 04:31:14 PM MDT

In-flight entertainment system on display at the Airline Passenger Experience Association and International Flight Services Association trade show at the Anaheim Convention Center (Stephen Carr/Los Angeles News Group)

The cabin of an Airbus 320, an aircraft that usually seats about 150 passengers, is a smidgen wider than 12 feet. So when the manufacturer decided it wanted to install a handicapped-accessible bathroom in some of its single-aisle planes, the question was where to put it.

Airbus couldn't displace any seats, or airlines wouldn't want it. And it had to fit in a cozy space, generally in the back of an airplane, near the galley.

The company's engineers found an impressive solution. They realized they could put two regular restrooms — lavatories in airline lingo — next to each other, with a retractable wall between them. Flight attendants would have a key to turn two bathrooms into one.

GoGo Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer Anand Chari, left, and President and GoGo President and Michael Small, center, show off the companies antenna used by airlines, at the Airline Passenger Experience Association and International Flight Services Association trade show at the Anaheim Convention Center. (Stephen Carr/Los Angeles News Group)

Aircraft cabins aren't getting any bigger, but airlines and manufacturers are trying to cram more and more stuff inside, and generally those extra bells and whistles are improving the experience for passengers.

Sometimes, as with the lavatory or with more luxurious flat-bed seats in business class, the advances affect relatively few passengers. But other times, especially with improved in-seat entertainment and faster Internet, the upgrades help all passengers.

After several years of not investing much in their on-board experience, airlines are finally starting to put some serious money into it. Many of those changes — like a full mock-up of the handicap accessible toilet and greatly improved in-seat entertainment screens — were on display last week at the annual Airline Passenger Experience Association expo in Anaheim.

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“Airlines were really focusing on spending their money on the ground,' said Neil James, executive director of corporate sales and product management at Lake Forest-based Panasonic Avionics, which makes in-seat entertainment systems for airlines such as Delta and American. “But there was this realization that you needed to win the passengers in the air, not just on the ground.'

Still, it's not only about providing a better experience. Screens like the ones made by Panasonic offer considerable revenue opportunities for airlines. James said a seat-back screen advertisement is 100 times more valuable for a brand than a regular website banner ad. And he said passengers are 80 times more likely to click on it than they would be on the ground.

“Right now, there's an in-seat magazine and it shows you a steak restaurant in a city you're not going to,' said Michael Small, president and chief executive of GoGo, which provides in-flight Internet for most U.S. airlines, including American, United and Delta and US Airways. “This allows more nuance in the way airlines treat customers.'

GoGo announced last week that by next year it will offer Internet on Virgin America at 60 Mbps, or roughly six times faster than the quickest connection it now makes available.

Better connectivity should allow airlines to sell even more extras at 35,000 feet. They might announce, via the touch-screen in the first hour of the flight, that there's one seat left in business class for, say, $500. Or they might create an auction for an unfilled economy seat with extra leg room.

Better Internet should also permit airlines to process credit cards in real time. (Many carriers now wait until the plane lands before they upload all the charges from the flight, which makes systems susceptible to fraud.)

This is not to say that entertainment aloft is all about revenue. Airlines do like to please passengers, who have long complained about relatively slow Internet speeds and few entertainment options. With GoGo's new service, which other airlines might also adopt, passengers will be able to accomplish just about any task from the plane — with the exception of streaming full-length television shows or movies. If they want those, they'll have to use the airlines' system.

“The bandwidth is still limited,' Small said. “My analogy is that you'll give everyone a glass of water, but you won't fill their swimming pool.'

For a brief period, some airline executives thought in-seat televisions were passe, that passengers would watch content on laptops, tablets and cellphones and that carriers would be left with expensive and obsolete hardware in seat backs.

But most executives soon realized they were wrong, said Brett Snyder, a Long Beach-based aviation analyst. For one, most of the devices need in-seat power, and not all airlines were willing to offer it. For another, it turns out most passengers prefer their entertainment in the air to be similar to how it is at home. Travelers actually want two devices running at once.

“It's that second screen thing,' Snyder said. “You want to have your TV on, and you want to have your laptop with you.'

The newest in-seat screens are roughly the same quality as those on iPads and other tablets, Panasonic's James said. And they're getting bigger — and lighter — every year.

Even better, James said his company has solved the problem of what executives call “henpecking,' or passengers who tap so violently at their touch-screens that people in the next row find it irritating. In the past, he said, the screens weren't as responsive as they are now, leading passengers to tap repeatedly, thinking the screen did not register the response.

In its newest systems, Delta Air Lines offers passengers 350 movies, 250 hours of television shows and more than 5,000 songs, airline officials said. Mike Henny, Delta's director of customer experience, said the airline, which began merging with Northwest in 2008, has focused more on improving the customer experience in recent years. A lot of that is getting the screens “clearer, thinner and brighter,' he said.

“We went from a position of being in survival mode and integrating two carriers to getting to profitability,' Henny said. “We got to the point where we had the luxury to invest a lot more in our infrastructure and on-board product.'

Meanwhile, as companies like GoGo and Panasonic work to improve connectivity at 35,000 feet, airplane manufacturers like Boeing and Airbus continue to try to make the most of the confined space of an airplane. Airbus, for example, gives airlines the options of adding several mirrors to their lavatories in an effort to make them seem bigger. (They're actually the same size as ever.)

“In cabin, everything is about perception,' said Anais Marzo da Costa, Airbus' interiors marketing director. Airbus also has worked with airlines to provide mood lighting, and offers carriers the ability to mimic sunrise and sunset. Among major U.S. airlines, Virgin America has taken greatest advantage of the mood lighting technology, she said.

“We like to spice things up,' Delta's Henny said. “But the challenge for us is that we have such a large fleet you can't just make a change like flooring and get it implemented overnight. There is a lot of certification time and a lot of costs.'

Finishes are important, but da Costa said Airbus knows that the best advances help both the airline and the passenger. It's difficult, she said, to implement a change that does not also create revenue for an airline.

“The goal is to have a win-win,' da Costa said. “You want to provide comfort for passengers and optimize revenue and efficiency for the airline.

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